


Dark Paradise

by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bittersweet story, F/M, Grief, Happy Ending, Loss, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:19:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc
Summary: Sasuke dies.Naruto and Sakura survive and move on with their lives - most of the time.





	Dark Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> "Every time I close my eyes  
> It's like a dark paradise  
> No one compares to you  
> I'm scared that you  
> Won't be waiting on the other side." - Dark Paradise, Lana Del Rey

It wasn’t that Naruto didn’t love Hinata.

No, he loved her a lot, actually. He adored his beautiful and loving wife, and more than that, he  _ loved _ their kids. Boruto had a strong attitude, but he was so much like Naruto used to be that it was like looking into a mirror - except smarter. 

And Himawari?

Who could ask for a better daughter? She was so sweet and caring that sometimes Naruto wondered what he even gave to her, what part of her didn’t come from his wonderful wife, and the thought was bittersweet. She was an amazing daughter, Boruto was an amazing son, and Hinata was an amazing wife.

But Naruto…

Naruto wasn’t an amazing husband.

Sometimes he wondered if he was even fair to her, to hold her at night and love her and have such a caring action make him want to cry from grief instead of love.

But Hinata understood. She would take him into her arms, hold him close, and sometimes, he’d even cry against her.

Naruto’s pen stills over a piece of paperwork he’d been signing - permissions for more funding for the academy, though he wasn’t entirely sure yet where he’d pull the money  _ from  _ \- and after a moment, he lowers it.

There, on the corner of his desk, is a picture of them.

Sakura, before she lost herself to her work and practically faded from his life.

Sasuke, before he lost his life and faded away forever.

Kakashi, before he forgot how to smile without it little brittle and painful.

Like Naruto’s own smiles looked sometimes.

Oh, he tried to be himself - he wouldn’t be Naruto without the sunshine, Sakura had once told him with a teary smile, after the funeral and before she took over the hospital from Tsunade’s hands. 

_ “You’re like the sun peeking through the clouds when you smile, Naruto. Don’t lose that.” _

He tried not to.

So did she.

They were both failing, even with new love and new life around them.

He had married Hinata for love, and she had married Shikamaru for love as well. Shikadai was a wonderful child, and Shikara was a wonderful daughter. He still remembered the way she’d swelled with the twins, the way she’d complained about looking like an  _ actual whale, Naruto, like the one we saw in Wave,  _ and the way Shikamaru had visibly but quietly panicked when she was giving a dangerous birth to them both.

It had almost killed her, but the Yin seal had saved her in the end. Women weren’t supposed to use too much chakra while pregnant, and the Yin seal definitely counted as  _ too much, _ but she’d timed it well, just as Shikara left her body and just before the hemorrhaging would have made her lose consciousness and then, most probably, pass away. 

_ We lost him,  _ Sakura tells him sometimes, when she actually can stand to visit him and bear the way their pain resonates off one another,  _ but we gained so much more in the process. _

_ It’s what he would have wanted, in the end. Even if he could be an asshole. _

Naruto would laugh, painful but genuine, because that was definitely true.

“Hokage-sama?” Shikamaru prods from where he hovers at Naruto’s side.

Some time must have passed. Usually, Shikamaru lets him have his moments, but if they go on too long, he tries to intervene.

Naruto does what he always does. “Leave me.” He dismisses softly.

Shikamaru hesitates, pausing long enough to settling a hand on his shoulder before turning and leaving the office. 

The door shuts, the ANBU silently back out of the room, too used to this to try any better. 

Naruto stares at the photo.

Of the four of them.

Of  _ him. _

He reaches out and touches Sasuke’s face, and isn’t surprised to feel tears stinging his eyes. 

The worst part was, it hadn’t even been real.

They’d been  _ so close, _ their hands about to touch Kaguya, Sakura forcing her down from above, but the vicious bitch had gotten her revenge in the end. Her bone had gone through Sasuke’s chest just before their hands touched her, and as a new moon formed in the sky, Sasuke began to turn to ash.

Naruto could remember it vividly. The way his heart had frozen in his chest. The way he’d seized Sasuke, desperately trying to stop the flaking away with his Yang powers, the way Sakura had pleaded with him not to go, the way that Kakashi had stood over them all with a loose but frozen pose, already defeated by the inevitability.

But Sasuke hadn’t died without doing his part.

He’d looked at Sakura, eyes spinning, and his eye began to bleed as he pulled her into Tsukiyomi. Naruto had followed a brief instant later, Sakura sobbing and Sasuke’s eyes turning to his.

The worst part about it all, Naruto muses as he touches Sasuke’s image, is that it _ hadn’t been real. _

The way Sasuke confessed to him.

The way they’d held each other, knowing the seventy-two hours they had would be the last they ever had. The way they’d loved each other, learning every inch of each other. The way they’d talked, more calmly and sincerely and passionately than they’d ever talked before.

_ I would have tried to repent, _ Sasuke had told him, quiet and regretfully resigned.  _ I would have stood by your side, or at least worked by it. I’d have been your shadow. _

Naruto believed him. He still did. 

But Sasuke didn’t have that chance, and his only shadow was his own. 

They’d loved each other for three days, and it was both real and a dream.

“Naruto.” Hinata’s gentle voice interrupts his thoughts, and he looks up to see her smile sadly in the doorway, already closing it quietly behind her.

He doesn’t hesitate to stand as she approaches, letting her draw him into her arms and pull his head to her shoulder, cradling it there. “Shikamaru called me.” She explains softly. “I hope that’s okay.”

All he can do is nod, his throat tight as he hugs her close. 

“Talk to me.” Hinata commands, running her hand through his hair.

He’s never told a soul about the Tsukiyomi except for Hinata. Not even Sakura, who likewise didn’t share her own experience. He’s often wondered if they’d shared in more than just their love and grief. Did Sasuke love her, as well, in the end? Did they all love each other, but Sasuke’s death had simply…

Forced them away?

Sometimes, shortly after it had happened, he’d catch Sakura looking at him the way he sometimes looked at her, and he wondered.

Hinata, patient and loving and  _ so understanding, _ never said a word of complaint about his lingering care for Sakura - especially as it had long now faded to a painfully distant friendship.

“I miss him, Hinata.” Naruto confesses, voice trembling.

It hurts so much to say it. So much more to admit it than to just feel it, but Hinata forces him to anyways. 

It always helps, in the end, but he always hates it in the beginning. “He wouldn’t want this for you.” Hinata says gently, and it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

“He’s gone, Hinata, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You’ll be okay.” Hinata promises.

As always, he wonders how true it is.   


* * *

 

 

He loves his family, Naruto reflects as they eat dinner, Boruto reenacting an exciting moment at the academy for them all, and he smiles warmly and laughs at the right moments. 

He loves them, so much he’d be  _ lost _ without them. He can’t imagine living his life without them in it, without Hinata’s patient love, Boruto’s exuberant passion, and Himawari’s quiet sweetness. 

“They’re the only thing I have worth living for sometimes.” Sakura tells him quietly over a rare lunch. She’s smiling, but the words are so sad his heart aches for her. “We’ve lost so much, haven’t we, Naruto?”

Sometimes he wonders if they really have, or if it just feels that way. Sasuke had had a way of being larger than life, and now he felt so much larger than death. 

“We’ve gained a lot, too.” He finds himself pointing out, thinking of his family. Of Hinata, who he truly did love with all his heart. Of his children, who he loved so much that them getting even so much as a cold made him  _ ache _ with worry.

“We really have.” Sakura agrees, smiling back, and this is much more genuine. “Sasuke would be happy for us, ne?”

Naruto’s mouth is dry.

The chopsticks tremble in his grip.

His words are honest and his smile is true. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, he would be.”

They smile for a moment, sharing grief and joy in one, and then they go back to eating, Sakura regaling him with the latest antics of her twin children.

Sometimes he wonders how they survive their loss.

 

Other times it's so obvious he can almost forget it ever happened at all.

 

They've lost a lot - but they've gained so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> Can't sleep, won't sleep, can't stop, won't stop! 
> 
> Hope you liked, even if it's sad ♥


End file.
